Bill 100, the Better Regional Governance Act, 2026, received Royal Assent on May 7, 2026 — Statutes of Ontario 2026, chapter 3 — and with it the head of council of the Region of Peel became a position the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing may fill by order following the 2026 election. Section 3 of Schedule 1 repeals and replaces section 218.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001 with a provision headed "Head of council, certain municipalities", which reads that the head of council of each listed municipality "shall be appointed" and that "the Minister may, by order, appoint a head of council". Subsection 218.1 (2) lists eight upper-tier municipalities, and the fifth is the Regional Municipality of Peel. The Minister may also remove a head of council appointed either by the Minister or by the council, and appoint a replacement. WHEN THIS TOOK EFFECT MATTERS AND THE BILL SPLITS IT IN TWO. Schedule 1 commences on Royal Assent except for a named list of provisions, and section 3 is not on that list — so the appointment power has been law since May 7, 2026, though its first rule lets the Minister appoint only "following the regular election in 2026". Sections 9 and 10 are on the deferred list and commence on November 15, 2026, 20 days after the October 26 election. Section 9 adds removal by the Minister under section 218.1 as a ground on which a council seat becomes vacant. Section 10 amends subsection 284.12 (1), the rule in Part VI.1 of the Act (which applies to municipalities the Minister designates by regulation) that a vacant head-of-council seat is filled by by-election, so that it speaks of the head of council "of a municipality other than a municipality set out in subsection 218.1 (2)". So the power to appoint became law before the election, its first rule applies only after it, and the machinery around it completes afterwards. WHAT THIS IS NOT is the dissolution of Peel, which was announced in 2023 and reversed. It is also not a change to who leads Mississauga: this section reaches the head of the REGION, not the mayor of a lower-tier city. WHAT IT DOES CHANGE is the answer this site had been giving. This Core Issue described Mississauga's governance future as unsettled after the dissolution reversal and the collapse of Bill 240. Part of it has since been settled, and not by negotiation between the City and the Region: the province legislated that the head of the regional government Mississauga sits inside is appointed (by the Minister by order or, failing that, by the regional council), and did so on May 7, 2026, ahead of Mississauga's vote on October 26, 2026.
Mississauga's post-Peel governance future
The tension: A governance future decided above the city — the province announced full dissolution of Peel, reversed it, announced the dissolution of its Transition Board without confirming whether the reports or studies the Board used to inform its December 2024 service-transfer decision would be made public, and then legislated that the head of the region Mississauga sits inside is appointed — by the Minister, or failing that by the regional council. Every step had a mechanism; none of them was put to Mississauga residents to decide.
Mississauga's governance future is being decided above the city. The province announced that the Region of Peel would be fully dissolved, then reversed that in favour of a phased transfer of some regional services. It announced the end of the transition board without confirming whether the studies the board used would be made public.
Then a 2026 provincial law said the head of the Region of Peel is to be appointed, by the Minister or failing that by the regional council. It does not change who leads Mississauga.
Waste collection is changing hands on a date set by provincial regulation, with the service residents will get decided at a committee meeting and confirmed by Council. Nobody hid it. It never became a question residents were asked.
The questions below ask who controls the process, not whether the structure is better.
Resolution Options
Questions you can ask
To: mayoralIn December 2024 the Province announced that the provincial Transition Board on Peel would be dissolved, without confirming whether the reports or studies it used to inform that month's service-transfer decision would be made public. Will you push for their public release, and for a public City position on Mississauga's governance future?
To: mayoralIf the province reopens Mississauga's governance structure, will you commit to public, ward-by-ward consultation before the City takes any official position?
To: allWill you commit to building ward-level advisory authority and participatory budgeting into any future governance model?
Candidates on record
The full story
The province’s plan to fully dissolve the Region of Peel (Bill 112, 2023) was reversed — replaced by a phased transfer of some regional services to Mississauga. Bill 240 reached First Reading on December 12, 2024 and was ordered for Second Reading; the Legislative Assembly records nothing after that, and the Parliament turned over with the bill still before the House. In December 2024 the Province announced that the provincial Transition Board would be dissolved as of December 31, and did not confirm whether any of the reports or studies the Board used to inform that month’s service-transfer decision would be made public.
But the transition legislation did not die with it. A successor was introduced in the new Parliament on June 4, 2025 and became law: Bill 45, the Peel Transition Implementation Act, 2025, received Royal Assent on December 11, 2025 — Statutes of Ontario 2025, chapter 23. It amends the Municipal Act, 2001 to move jurisdiction over highways, bridges and the public utilities draining stormwater from them out of the Region and into Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, each to “the lower-tier municipality in which the highway and the public utilities are located”, and gives the Minister broad regulation-making power to facilitate it.
The Act made July 1, 2026 the default date, and the Minister set a later one. Section 53.1, which moves the roads, has been in force since Royal Assent on December 11, 2025. It transfers jurisdiction “as of the date prescribed by the Minister for each lower-tier municipality”, and only “if the Minister does not prescribe a different date for the transfer before July 1, 2026” does the transfer occur on that day. One section is held back: section 9(3) provides that section 2, which amends items 1 and 4e of the Table to section 11 to read “All upper-tier municipalities except Peel”, comes into force “on a day to be named by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council”.
The roads have not transferred. The prescribed date is July 1, 2027. On December 23, 2025 the Minister made Ontario Regulation 401/25 under the Municipal Act, filed December 24, 2025: “For the purposes of subsection 53.1 (1) of the Act, the date prescribed for the City of Mississauga, the City of Brampton and the Town of Caledon is July 1, 2027.” e-Laws, read October 2, 2026, records no amendments to it. Until that date the Region of Peel holds jurisdiction over its regional roads. The rest of the Act is in force: the consolidated Municipal Act (consolidation period from June 2, 2026) records sections 4 to 8 of the 2025 Act in force from December 11, 2025, and section 3, deemed effective June 4, 2025, adds to section 52 that it “does not apply to The Regional Municipality of Peel”. Only section 2, the Table amendment, is recorded as “2025, c. 23, s. 2 - not in force”. When it will be proclaimed is not something we can source, and we do not publish a date for it from coverage alone.
Then part of the question was answered — by statute, and not in the direction the word “unsettled” suggests. On May 7, 2026 the Better Regional Governance Act, 2026 (Bill 100) received Royal Assent. Section 3 of its Schedule 1 replaced section 218.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001 with a provision headed “Head of council, certain municipalities”: the head of council of each listed municipality shall be appointed, and the Minister may, by order, appoint one “following the regular election in 2026 and every subsequent regular election” — and may remove a head of council appointed by the Minister or by the council, and appoint a replacement. Subsection 218.1(2) lists eight upper-tier municipalities. The fifth is the Regional Municipality of Peel.
The commencement dates straddle this election, and that is worth stating plainly. Schedule 1 came into force on Royal Assent except for a named list of sections — and section 3 is not on it, so the appointment power has been law since May 7, 2026, though its first rule lets the Minister appoint a head of council only “following the regular election in 2026”. Sections 9 and 10 are on the deferred list and arrive on November 15, 2026, 20 days after the October 26 vote: section 9 makes ministerial removal a ground for a vacant seat, and section 10 amends section 284.12(1) — the rule in Part VI.1 of the Act, “Special Powers and Duties of the Head of Council”, which applies to municipalities the Minister designates, that a vacant head-of-council seat is filled by by-election — so that it applies to a head of council “of a municipality other than a municipality set out in subsection 218.1 (2)”.
Who pays for the region is a separate question. How Peel Regional Police’s cost is divided between Mississauga and Brampton — by a Regional by-law that each city must consent to, in each year the Region delegates, before the last day of February — has its own page.
Stormwater moves only narrowly. Bill 45 moves “public utilities collecting the storm water that drains from those highways”: road drainage, not the City’s stormwater system. Who sets the City’s flood-protection priorities, and on whose advice, is on the climate adaptation page.
What this is not: the dissolution of Peel, which was announced and reversed. Nor does it change who leads Mississauga — section 218.1 reaches the head of the region, not the mayor of a lower-tier city. We have found no order appointing anyone (searched 2026-10-02); what is established is the power and the date it took effect.
So the most useful question is not whether the eventual structure is better or worse — it is who controls the process that decides it. That was already the right question when the structure was merely unsettled. It is a sharper one now that a piece of it was settled by statute on May 7, 2026 (a power for the Minister to appoint the head of the region by order, usable only following the 2026 election) before residents vote on October 26, with no collective-choice mechanism for the people it governs.
Unsettled is not the same as stopped, and the transfers now have dates. Ontario Regulation 401/25 prescribes October 1, 2027 for the transfer of waste collection, the date Mississauga City Council had approved on September 10, 2025. On March 25, 2026, General Committee recommended the service levels the City will provide from that date under its own contracts, and Council approved them on April 1, 2026 — five-day-a-week collection, seasonal yard waste every two weeks, a single city-wide contract for multi-residential buildings, and recycling collection, taken over from the Region of Peel, at locations Circular Materials does not collect from, including municipal facilities, some small businesses, and places of worship. It also created a transition project and one permanent position from May 2026 to prepare for the handover. The committee vote was 11–0.
So a service used by every household in the city is changing hands on a date set by provincial regulation, with the service residents will get decided at a committee meeting and confirmed by Council, without anything that could reasonably be called a public process. Nobody hid it — the report was public and the vote was recorded. It simply never became a question residents were asked.
That is what makes the wider governance question concrete rather than abstract. The structure above the City is still unsettled; the transfers underneath it are already being scheduled. Whichever way the province eventually goes, decisions of this size will keep arriving as agenda items — and residents are heard on them the way they are heard on any agenda item: by asking to speak at the meeting.
Fact-check
The province's plan to fully dissolve the Region of Peel (Bill 112, 2023) was reversed; instead a phased transfer of some regional services (e.g. roads, waste) to Mississauga was pursued. Bill 240, the Peel Transition Implementation Act, 2024, reached First Reading on December 12 2024 and was ordered for Second Reading; the Legislative Assembly's page for it records no stage after that, and it sits in the 43rd Parliament while the current Bill 100 sits in the 44th, so the Parliament turned over with the bill still before the House. In December 2024 the Province announced that the provincial Transition Board would be dissolved as of December 31, 2024, and did not confirm whether any of the reports or studies the Board used to inform that month's service-transfer decision would be made public. AND THEN PART OF THE QUESTION WAS ANSWERED BY STATUTE, added 2026-08-12 by spot-check: Bill 100, the Better Regional Governance Act, 2026, received Royal Assent on May 7 2026 (Statutes of Ontario 2026, chapter 3). Section 3 of its Schedule 1 repeals and substitutes s.218.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001 under the heading 'Head of council, certain municipalities', providing that the head of council of each listed municipality 'shall be appointed' and that 'the Minister may, by order, appoint a head of council', and that the Minister may remove a head of council appointed by the Minister or by the council and appoint a new one. Subsection 218.1(2) lists eight upper-tier municipalities and paragraph 5 is the Regional Municipality of Peel. COMMENCEMENT IS SPLIT AND THE SPLIT STRADDLES THE ELECTION: Schedule 1 s.11(1) commences the Schedule on Royal Assent, and s.11(2) defers ss.5, 6(2), 7, 8(2), 9 and 10 to November 15 2026. Section 3 is NOT deferred, so the appointment power has been law since May 7 2026. Sections 9 and 10 ARE deferred to November 15 2026, 20 days after the October 26 election: s.9 adds ministerial removal under s.218.1 as a ground for a vacant seat, and s.10 amends s.284.12(1), the rule in Part VI.1 (which applies to municipalities the Minister designates by regulation) that a vacant head-of-council seat is filled by by-election, to speak of the head of council 'of a municipality other than a municipality set out in subsection 218.1 (2)'. NOT ASSERTED: whether the Minister has appointed or intends to appoint a head of council for Peel. No order has been found (searched 2026-10-02); what is established is the power and the date it came into force. The section reaches the head of the REGION and not the mayor of a lower-tier municipality, so it does not change who leads Mississauga. CORRECTED 2026-08-12: this entry previously ended 'leaving Mississauga's future governance structure unsettled' and cited no legislative source for the fate of Bill 240 — its three sources were two City news pages from December 2023 and one press article from December 2024, none of which mention the Legislative Assembly. It also carried nothing at all about Bill 100, an instrument already archived in this repository and already cited on strong-mayor-override.
Developments
General Committee unanimously recommended the service levels for taking waste collection over from the Region of Peel, to start with the City's own contracts on October 1, 2027 — the transfer date Ontario Regulation 401/25 prescribes — agreed 11-0 with no recorded dissent. Council approved the service levels on April 1, 2026.
The province set the dates for the first Peel transfers by regulation. Ontario Regulation 401/25, made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on December 23, 2025 and filed December 24, 2025, prescribes July 1, 2027 as the date jurisdiction over Peel's regional roads, and the public utilities collecting the stormwater that drains from them, passes to Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon (subsection 53.1 (1) of the Municipal Act, 2001), and October 1, 2027 for waste collection (subsection 469.1 (1)). The roads date is one year later than the July 1, 2026 date the Peel Transition Implementation Act would have applied had no other date been prescribed; insauga reported that the province announced the delay on December 19, 2025 and that City of Mississauga officials said it caught them by surprise. The waste date is the one Mississauga City Council had approved on September 10, 2025. The regulation came into force on the day it was filed.
The Peel transition legislation did not die with Bill 240. A successor passed. Bill 45, the Peel Transition Implementation Act, 2025, received Royal Assent on December 11, 2025 — Statutes of Ontario 2025, chapter 23 — sponsored by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Its long title is "An Act to make statutory amendments respecting the transfer of jurisdiction within The Regional Municipality of Peel and the appointment of Deputy Provincial Land and Development Facilitators". WHAT IT DOES. It amends the Municipal Act, 2001 to transfer jurisdiction, or joint jurisdiction, over highways including bridges — and over the public utilities collecting the stormwater that drains from them — from the Regional Municipality of Peel to the City of Mississauga, the City of Brampton and the Town of Caledon, each to "the lower-tier municipality in which the highway and the public utilities are located" (s. 53.1 (1)). The Act's Explanatory Note says the transfer "is to occur on July 1, 2026 or on a day prescribed by the Minister"; the enacted s. 53.1 makes July 1, 2026 the date only "If the Minister does not prescribe a different date for the transfer before July 1, 2026". It also amends section 453 to give the Minister authority to make any regulations the Minister considers necessary or desirable to facilitate it. Separately it amends the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Act, striking out "four" and substituting "six", which raises the number of Deputy Provincial Land and Development Facilitators the Minister may appoint. THE COMMENCEMENT IS SPLIT, AND ONLY THE TABLE AMENDMENT IS DEFERRED. Section 9 (1) brings the Act into force on Royal Assent; section 9 (2) deems section 3 to have come into force on June 4, 2025; and section 9 (3) provides that SECTION 2 — which amends items 1 and 4e of the Table to section 11 of the Municipal Act — "comes into force on a day to be named by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council". So the statute is law, the transfer clause (s. 5, enacting s. 53.1) has been in force since December 11, 2025, and only the Table amendment awaits a proclamation. ANSWERED 2026-08-12 FROM THE CONSOLIDATED STATUTE: SECTION 2 IS NOT IN FORCE. The e-Laws consolidation of the Municipal Act, 2001 — consolidation period from June 2, 2026, last amendment 2026, c. 8, Sched. 6 — still shows items 1 and 4e of the Table to section 11 assigning highways and the collection of storm water to "All upper-tier municipalities", and records the pending change in terms: those items are to be amended by striking that phrase and substituting "All upper-tier municipalities except Peel", followed by the status line "2025, c. 23, s. 2 - not in force". The consolidation period begins June 2, 2026. It shows that section 2 is unproclaimed; it is not evidence about the transfer date, which the Minister set by regulation. JURISDICTION OVER REGIONAL ROADS AND THEIR STORMWATER HAS NOT MOVED, AND ITS PRESCRIBED DATE IS JULY 1, 2027. Ontario Regulation 401/25, made by the Minister on December 23, 2025 and filed December 24, 2025, reads: "For the purposes of subsection 53.1 (1) of the Act, the date prescribed for the City of Mississauga, the City of Brampton and the Town of Caledon is July 1, 2027." It prescribes October 1, 2027 for waste collection under s. 469.1. The Region of Peel holds road jurisdiction until then. What HAS come into force includes section 3, deemed effective June 4, 2025: section 52 of the Municipal Act, on joint jurisdiction over boundary highways, now ends "This section does not apply to The Regional Municipality of Peel." So the Act is in force except for section 2 — the exception and the transfer provision both operate, and the transfer date the Minister prescribed is July 1, 2027. STILL NOT ASSERTED: WHEN section 2 will be proclaimed. The consolidation records only that it is not. Secondary coverage reported that the province deferred the transfer to July 2027; Ontario Regulation 401/25 is the primary that confirms it. WHY IT MATTERS HERE. This Core Issue described Mississauga's governance future as unsettled because the follow-up legislation had died. Bill 240 did die, in the previous Parliament. A successor was introduced on June 4, 2025, carried Second Reading on December 8, Third Reading on December 9, and became law two days later — and the site carried none of it.